


I'll Cover You

by Tonko



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 12:23:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17787341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tonko/pseuds/Tonko
Summary: A little comfort after a nightmare.





	I'll Cover You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VenatorNoctis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VenatorNoctis/gifts).



> Participating in Chocolate Box, I found a request not assigned to me that I just really wanted to write a little something for.
> 
> No spoilers in here, though set in my mind after they're back from their post-2.55 trip. Title is taken from the RENT song, and also because Hoary is a paladin.

Hoary woke to ragged breathing beside him. There came a distressed grunt, and then Coultenet thrashed upright. He struggled to throw off tangled covers before he got free, and panted, bare-chested, in the not quite dark. Dim light of predawn was seeping faint contrast into the shadows, and Hoary scrubbed the sleep away as Coultenet ran his hands back through his hair. Hoary spoke softly. "Wherever you just were, you're here now."

It took some time for Coultenet to answer. "I found you--I found--almost as before, but it was too late..." Coultenet spoke more evenly by the word, voice hollow, but his innate calm won out. Still, when he dropped his hands to the rumpled blankets over his lap, they shook.

An old, bad dream. 

"I am here. You saved me," Hoary reminded him firmly. He sat up, the bedframe's now-familiar creak under him loud in their small room. "Can you still sleep?" Hoary asked. Sometimes after waking this way he would be too unnerved to find rest again, and retreat to his books.

Coultenet made a noncommittal noise, a wrung-out sigh, and turned to drop his forehead against Hoary's shoulder. Hoary slid his hand open at Coultenet's lower back, warm and damp with sweat from his dream. 

It never failed to seem remarkable to Hoary that his one spread hand could nearly span the breadth of Coultenet's back, but he rather liked the impression that he could hold that lean body, which contained enough magical skill and power to take his breath away, so completely in his hands, or, to his endless satisfaction, his arms. 

He rubbed up and down again, thumb stroking along the bumps of his spine, fingertips tracing idly along the waistband of the short pants Coultenet slept in. "Hm," came a low, rough sound. Quite familiar, too. Coultenet would not ask, not at a time like this, but Hoary had learned to interpret the tells.

And he was glad to hear it. He far preferred being able to comfort him this way, rather than watching him escape alone to the security of the written word. He'd not begrudge him whatever way he needed to cope, but Hoary was always selfishly reassured when he could provide that himself.

"Shall I prove I'm here and hale, then?" Hoary suggested, tucking his hand farther around Coultenet's waist, fingertips sliding along the angle of his thigh.

A little hitch of breath, and Coultenet leaned harder against him, the back of his near hand rose to stroke knuckles down Hoary's chest, the motion tired but affectionate.

Hoary caught that hand in his, trying, as always, to press his own warmth into those colder fingers. "By all means," came the answer, Coultenet's face turned upward to his, eyes closed, brow still drawn with the tension of what had first woken him up. 

Hoary met the request for a kiss, engulfed him in his arms, drew him down again, settled him snug against his side. He didn't bother with any of the supplies he'd have to let go of Coultenet to reach. Easy and simple, this, just for the release to tire him again, let him sleep until the sun more formally demanded they rise. 

Coultenet nestled near. Despite Hoary being taller, the even greater difference in their respective breadths always left Hoary feeling as though he had endless lean ilms of the man to touch.

On leaving home and properly meeting so many people of other races, he'd been so silently aghast at the sheer apparent fragility of them all.

He'd learned soon enough that power--and durability--was leveraged differently by many of them who were of a mind to fight, not least when he'd put in his place most thoroughly by the Warrior of Light, that diminutive beacon of the Scions. And each of them had talents far different from his that he could never disdain.

And this man too. Hoary was ever grateful that staff and those hands and this keen mind were, by all the grace of the Twelve, what made up the strength in his most trusted partner. He caressed down over Coultenet's hip, his thigh; with a tug it lifted and Hoary nestled his own thigh between, earning a bitten-back noise of gratitude and a slow, rolling grind. 

Coultenet's hand gripped at his forearm, bracing as he rubbed himself erect. Hoary held him steady, a little pressure as needed, while he mouthed at his neck, at the reassuring heat of his pulse, the line of his throat so very lovely, despite the incredulous noise he'd earned on saying it aloud. 

'Thoroughly ordinary,' the man had described himself in surprised response, and then the red across his cheeks at Hoary's immediate scoff had been charming to see.

The noises he'd made while Hoary had demonstrated his disagreement had been even sweeter to hear. 

The avid way Coultenet's own brilliant fingers always moved across Hoary's own body filled him in turn with pride--his strength, his scars, muscle and bone and hardiness--they were what gave him his value in a fight, to take a blow and stay upright.

Not a few times, standing beside this man he'd felt quite the hulking beast. But Coultenet's hands told him so clearly; that was not so, all of him opening unhesitatingly to Hoary's touch.

And now it was his long fingers insinuating themselves deftly between them, past the soft, bunched fabric of Hoary's smalls, cool and smooth and wrapping firm around his own erection, fingers deftly stroking and his thumb sliding through the bead at the tip to bring smooth pressure just below the head--"You--!" Hoary managed as the pleasure of it spiked up past the warm tide of slower arousal. 

"Certainly hale," Coultenet murmured, and Hoary snorted. He slid the hand at his back rather lower, pushing aside the shorts to cup and squeeze at his rear, digging firm fingers in just enough so that Coultenet made that wordless noise again, squirming and pressing backward. His motion gave Hoary the chance to divest him of those shorts. Such a minor thing, but always a thrill to have him all uncovered.

"Yes, _certainly_ ," Hoary growled. He shoved at his own smalls until they were off, and rolled the two of them enough to put Coultenet on his back beneath him. He'd spent their first few times in bed very carefully avoiding anything even approaching this position, until Coultenet had impatiently hauled him into place one early morning, huffily informing him that he would not break. Which had turned out, pleasantly, to be true. Now, Hoary kissed him below one long, lovely--not ordinary--ear, visited his mouth for some long moments, the wet warmth deep and soft, swaying the wider tide of his arousal strongly onward. 

Coultenet's hands were stroking at his flanks, sensation trailing behind his fingertips. Hoary found the one caressing his left side, and when Coultenet laced his fingers through, drew their joined hands up and settled his weight on his forearm. 

Partially pinned, unless he chose to let go, Coultenet rolled his shoulders against the bed, his other hand digging fingertips in, the hot length of his cock rubbing upwards, seeking and leaving slickness against Hoary's belly and then his thigh until he situated himself right. Hoary growled again, no words, only the deep and deliberate rumble, and it made Coultenet gulp a hungry gasp and arch luxuriously under him. Hoary slid his hand back beneath Coultenet's rear to hold on for them both to follow each other's pleasure. 

Coultenet's free arm wrapped as far up around his back as he could get, spanning some of the broad arch of Hoary's back as he pressed the weight of himself against Coultenet's thrusts and still curled over enough to keep his mouth against the side of his head. Blunt nails bit at his skin as Coultenet's hips moved quicker, his thighs taut. One heel scraped at him for leverage, and so Hoary adjusted his grip as best he could. Coultenet came under him with a closed-mouth pleading little moan and a final writhe.

He relaxed all at once, his roaming hand abruptly a caress that slipped down to where Hoary gripped his hip, slid warmly over the back of it, over his knuckles, pressed, hard.

"Oh-oh-oh, _you_ …" Hoary stuttered breathlessly, let his grip tighten to hold him just.. .just there--he braced heavily on his arm, set his knees and found his peak against the hot, come-slicked belly under him.

He rolled mostly off, leaving one arm out across Coultenet's chest, his face mashed against the pillow by his shoulder. He could hear him breathing. Where he'd hoped to listen to it ease into sleep, instead the heartbeat under his hand didn't slow, and Coultenet's breathing trailed at a little length into a shuddering wet gasp.

Not without precedent, that, when he'd woken as he had. Hoary bit back the words that came to him, only shifted on the bed a little nearer against him, pressing a cheek against his shoulder, nothing more. Once, he'd asked, and been met with silence and a blotchy flush that Coultenet had looked away to hide, so he'd let it alone.

Well, not _alone_. Not then, or now. Coultenet's hand drew up to rest over Hoary's wrist, fingers curling in sleepy strokes against his skin.

Hoary stretched quietly after another few moments. He pushed himself upright just enough to clean them both up enough for now, and hauled the covers back over them both. Coultenet rolled to face away from him as he did, and when Hoary lay down again, he fitted himself up against his back, nose in his hair catching the faint traces of lavender from his soap. Coultenet relaxed altogether, and it was not long before Hoary felt and heard him fall back to sleep.

For his part, he'd be unlikely now to manage more than a bit of a doze, but there were far, far worse ways to spend the last predawn hour.


End file.
